Monday, September 26, 2011

Young Love

And I'm takin' REAL young.

Back in July, our family attended a conference in NJ, at what our girls call "the New Jersey church". From her first class with the other 4 yr. olds, Maddie began talking to us about a little boy in her class named Nathan. We didn't think it was at all unusual for her to make a friend who was a boy, since she tends to gravitate toward playing with boys. Out of her 15 cousins, only 2 are girls and she rarely sees them. So she often plays with boys.

As the week went on, however, some unusual things did come out of her mouth.

"Hey Mom, you know my friend, Nathan... he's cute."

Hmm... that's a first. Babies, kittens, outfits. Those things are cute for a 4 yr. old girl. A boy? No.

And then, later, "Mom, Nathan is a KING!"

Wow. This little guy has made quite an impression.

Just so you know, we're not really big into the boyfriend/girlfriend pretend stuff for little ones. Sometimes I joke with friends of mine who have boys the same age as my daughters and we arrange their betrothment, but I never joke with the girls themselves about having a boyfriend. But I also didn't want to make much ado about nothing, so we just kind of smiled and nodded whenever Maddie talked about this cute, kingly boy named Nathan.

By the way, I never did get to met Nathan. So if you live in New Jersey and have a 4 ys. old boy named Nathan, kindly send me his picture and bio for a background check.

Now, here we are in September, and with ZERO prompting from us (believe me!) Maddie continues to bring up Nathan. Just today, she was reading a story and the character's name happened to be Nathan. She stopped reading and grinned at me, "Just like the boy at the New Jersey church that I fell in love with!"

Um, excuse me?

"You did not fall in love with Nathan."

I take partial blame for this: I used to term "fall in love" once when explaining to Maddie why so-and-so were getting married. Now I know I should have said that they were getting married because he worked a good job and her daddy said it was okay.

"But Mom," Maddie insisted, "I DID fall in love!"

"No, you did not".

"Why not?"

"Because 4 year olds aren't allowed."

So at this point in time, Maddie is planning a wedding to a boy named Nathan, Seth is sharpening his knife collection and I'm wondering how is it that we are having these conversations so soon.

I think it's time to introduce Maddie to harsh truth of cooties.
Love,

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Laughing at Seth sharping the knife collection! Sighs, here I am with Maddies cousin whose 10 years older and dealing with boys! Cooties did not work with her mind you. Good Luck on this one... too cute for words!

Anonymous said...

Oh my GOSH! This is my daughter!! She's 5 and a total tomboy, so I never imagined she'd come home from her first week of school saying, "I think I'm gonna marry Collin because I think about him alllll the time."